Prayer of the Dragon (Inspector Shan Tao Yun Series #5) Book

Spoilers follow.

Oh :( The last time I suffered as much while reading something was when I was reading "First against the wall". My favorite part of these books is the friendship of Shan and Lokesh, and to see that friendship disturbed was very painful to read. And that Shan decides to leave Gendun and Lokesh in the end makes a certain amount of sense but it saddens me.

Still, this book was good. And thinking about it, I have to admire Pattison for writing in such a way that you really seem to feel the same things Shan has to feel - when he is taken to a small village on a mountain to help solve a murder, suddenly his two friends Gendun and Lokesh are taken hostage by the head of the village who sees his safe position threatened by their arrival. And so for most of the book, Lokesh and especially Gendun are in horrible danger while Shan is trying to find out the truth and I found myself worrying about them most of the time.

I've written before about the many interesting and wonderful things about this series and the many reasons why I love it so much, but there is one thing I've forgotten so far: these are some of the few books I can think of that don't feature a romantic subplot of some sort, and it's refreshing to read. Or not to read, if you want. So often it seems to me that it's added because it's "expected", because "you need a little romance", but really, you don't. Not necessarily.